A professional adventurer, writer, and journalist specializing in extreme sports, Rio Grande do Sul native Airton Ortiz has traveled half the world in search of adventures, especially those that yield good stories to share with his readers. His travelogues, filled with detailed descriptions, are part of the Radical Travels Collection, dedicated to fantastic and real-life experiences in the most inhospitable, exotic, and interesting places on the planet. After climbing Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, trekking the Himalayas in Nepal, defying the Chinese Army Secret Service, and traveling to icy Alaska, Ortiz now recounts his expedition through Southeast Asia in post-war Vietnam, his tenth book in the Radical Travels Collection. Although he visited Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, the adventure centers on Vietnam, as the author traveled throughout Vietnam, traveling from Hanoi in the north to Saigon in the south, passing through Ha Long Bay and the Demilitarized Zone, the former border between North and South Vietnam. Accompanied by photojournalist Luiz Antônio Ferreira, Ortiz visited the sites of the major battles during the Vietnam War. His goal on this trip is to retell the history of the war from the Vietnamese perspective, as almost everything known about this conflict reaches Brazil through the eyes of the American press. Upon arrival in Hanoi, the reporter discovered that even the name of the war differs depending on who is telling the story. For the United States, and the rest of the world, it was the Vietnam War. But for the Vietnamese, it is known as the American War. Another fact that surprised the journalist: while the Western press reported that the reason for the war was to prevent the advance of communism throughout the world, this in the midst of the Cold War, for the people of Vietnam, the fight was to defend the country from invasion by a foreign power. Vietnam is a country with a dictatorial political system, where the bureaucracy linked to the Communist Party—which is anything but communist—rule with an iron fist. There is no freedom of the press or opposition parties. But the economic system is capitalist, based on a free-market economy. A 16-page booklet of color photographs illustrates this exciting journey. The reporters also traveled through the Mekong Delta, a wild region where survival required snake meat, the only food available. "Sailing the Mekong River," explains Airton Ortiz, "was one of the greatest adventures I've ever faced."
